Lamenting the passing of Ebay Past - (Or a wet Winter's night rant)

Anyone else find it infuriating how when an auction ends these days ebay auto-diverts to a different listing altogether and then you have to click on a series of links just to get back on the item page you were looking at in the first place? Plus, why oh why have a link to take you back to the item page and then have to click on yet another link to 'View Original Listing'. It's just so convoluted and annoyingly clunky and dumb, dumb, dumb!!!

 

Today I was considering bidding on two items from the same seller about a minute apart in auction end times - when the first one ended I just wanted to click on the 'seller's other items' link - but at the auction end it jumped to another listing for an 'ebay pick' item (this time without even the banner up the top saying the previous item I was looking at ended). In short, by the time I managed to jump through a series of hoops just to find my way back to the seller's items the other listing had already ended. I don't know about anyone else, but I've never given one of those barely relevant ebay picks even a momentary glance (I'm quite capable of searching for items I'm interested in thanks ebay).

 

Those {insert expletive from drop down menu here} ebay web designers, they just have to keep adding inane, annoying, silly, infantile new features - like they're scrambling to justify that they're being paid 6 digit salaries to do something (anything is better than nothing apparently). If I could opt out of present day ebay's format and go back to 'Classic' (the way it was when I first started using the site 11 plus years ago) I'd do so without a blink or a moment to reflect on what I'd be missing out on. I guess ebay employing web designers to reinvent (or maybe more aptly "redecorate") the wheel with the next gimmicky annoying feature keeps them from living rough out of the back of their Jeeps and surviving off doggy bags and partially consumed opened bottles of red wine secreted out of upmarket restaurants by their Silicon Valley former co-workers.

 

Another thing I can't stand is the 'improved functionality' of pop ups which activate if you hover the cursor for a split second - and I really can't stand 'one click bidding' (when trying to manually drop a bid in the closing seconds - in Chrome it generally bids instantly, but is unreliable - today it gave me a 'confirm bid' step in the form of a pop up which I didn't realise until too late. Meaning I can't be sure if it's going to bid when I click, or take me to a confirm step before placing the bid. Have to admit I usually use an unsupported earlier version of Safari just to avoid the 'one click' feature - just because I know it will take me to a separate 'confirm bid' window.

 

Another thing I used to sort of like, was the Q & A bit at the bottom of listing pages, but I can't remember the last time I saw a 'questions from other members' section on a listing (guessing this was discontinued??) And I used to like the link on 'Best Offer' enabled listings where you could simply click on this and see how many offers had been made and the offer satus (pending / declined) - but that feature doesn't seem to exist anymore either.

 

Interested to hear anyone else's nostalgic laments and "remember whens"....  

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Lamenting the passing of Ebay Past - (Or a wet Winter's night rant)

In short, eBay has gradually chased a future deemed more lucrative in lieu of remaining loyal to their initial charter.

 

This has IMO created short term gain resulting in a downturn of activity combined with a lack of consumer confidence in the site.

 

With a reputation tarnished it becomes more difficult to rescue integrity creating further compromised decisions adding to the snowball of failures stemming from within eBay.

 

It appears eBay is in too deep a hole to dig themselves out.

 

Having said that, on a user level, there are still many functions and features that could be improved as you have pointed out.

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Lamenting the passing of Ebay Past - (Or a wet Winter's night rant)

If you're ever considering bidding on two items that end only a minute or so apart, open 2 windows well beforehand, go to the 2 different items and click on 'bid now' Type in your figure but don't press the final button.

All this is best done on a computer or ipad, not a phone.

 

It just means when the time comes, you can switch to the next item immediately, no searching.

 

As for ask seller a question, I didn't mind that but I think there needed to be a tick the box type section so that buyers could opt out of allowing it to be visible on the listing. I was once abused in a reply-well, given a very sarcastic reply anyway-by a seller who got stroppy because apparently I was about the 70th person to ask the question. I would have preferred that had not appeared in the ad, I was annoyed.

 

I felt like saying-well, you should have addressed it in your ad then. He was upset that people were messaging short questions when he had put a mobile phone number in the ad but he hadn't said anywhere no one could ask a question any other way!

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Lamenting the passing of Ebay Past - (Or a wet Winter's night rant)

Yes, it is very irritating, and their suggestions are ludicrous to say the least, and I hate to see them in my recently watched list too.

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Lamenting the passing of Ebay Past - (Or a wet Winter's night rant)

I remember when I could buy excellent quality and highly collectable Georgian silver items for my collection...

 

I can also remember the days when I could find out-of-print novels listed by UK and US and German and French and Italian sellers, and the postage would be under $10.

 

Ah, those heady days pre-Big Store inclusion! It was like wandering idly through a village to peek into the windows of the village shops. Now... it's like being in the middle of a gigantic shopping centre filled with all the major shops, franchises, and department stores... wondering where all of the little corner shops have gone.

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Lamenting the passing of Ebay Past - (Or a wet Winter's night rant)

Some are still here.

 

Unfortunately I suspect my OOP books wouldn't be of much interest to you.

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Lamenting the passing of Ebay Past - (Or a wet Winter's night rant)

Give me some idea of what you have; I may well be interested!

 

My interests (books): Ancient Near East archaeology and history, Greek history, Roman history, Egyptian history, hieroglyphics, Ancient Hebrew, Classical Latin, astrophysics, biochemistry, theology, Georgian furniture, Georgian silver, How To Pamper A Cheeky Ginger Cat, history of coffee (although I don't know whether there's anything that I'm missing!), advanced harmony and counterpoint, interesting recipe books that I don't have, and one of these days I think I'll be interested in exquisite needlework/tapestry and even My First Detailed Book on How To Paint (for people who are not naturally gifted in this field but would love to be - aka... yes... me)... that elusive first edition of Shakespeare's folios... Zane Grey novels (but I think I've got all of them now), oop golden age detective/mystery novels, a book by Essie Summers which I am SURE that I read in high school (and the title of which was something to do with Fiji or similar) but haven't been able to find in any bibliography or list, and I think there's a Lucilla Andrews that I have had trouble finding... Wife of the Red-Haired Man, I think...? Weird classic sci-fi would also be of interest as long as it's not Asimov (have complete collection) or E. E. "Doc" Smith (I utterly loathe his writing). Additionally... some of the more obscure WWI poems that aren't in the major collections...

 

That's by no means definitive.

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Lamenting the passing of Ebay Past - (Or a wet Winter's night rant)

Essie Summers - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Essie_Summers

 

Wife of the red haired man - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3633996-the-wife-of-the-red-haired-man

 

A fantasy book I liked - Replay by Ken Grimwood.

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Lamenting the passing of Ebay Past - (Or a wet Winter's night rant)

I have SF. I don't stock much (any) of the others. Not much Asimov - they tend to sell quickly. Not much Smith (Doc or Cordwainer), I'm not into them either. Lots of Simak and Silverberg, some Zelazny, Green, Farmer, Niven...

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Lamenting the passing of Ebay Past - (Or a wet Winter's night rant)


@countessalmirena wrote:

I remember when I could buy excellent quality and highly collectable Georgian silver items for my collection...

 

I can also remember the days when I could find out-of-print novels listed by UK and US and German and French and Italian sellers, and the postage would be under $10.

 


Books...yes.  Isn't that the truth...and the biggest problem is the GSP. 

I've got some old books on my wanted list but the postage has been nothing less than criminal. 

 

The other issue are some inflated prices for so-called 'rare' books.  When there's at least four of them (all of the same edition) on eBay that ain't very rare.  But then they are all double the cost of the book itself for postage because they use the GSP.

 

I am so glad I got most of my must have collecting done before the GSP.

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